


like sunrise

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mutual Pining, Short & Sweet, The prompt was, You’re the only person I wanted to be with tonight, from a tumblr prompt, the night before graduation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23274511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: Bitty went with Jack to take some early morning photos at the Pond and each of the Quads before anyone else was awake. He knows what Jack looks like when he’s trying to piece a photo together; he knows the slight pinch of his eyebrows, how his lips part as he focuses the camera, the way he just can’t look away before he takes his shot. And right now? Right now Jack’s looking at Bitty like he doesn’t want to stop._________________________'Twas the night before graduation :) Zimbits, from Bitt's POV. A short alternate first kiss
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 28
Kudos: 183





	like sunrise

________________________

They have a fire on the roof.

Bitty can see the lazy flickering flames from the stairwell. He does his best not to look  _ too _ hard; he and Jack were the last ones up, and he doesn’t want to stare at Jack’s ass while figuring out whether Ransom and Holster have permission for the fire, if someone will call the police and shut them down before he can tell Jack — what he shouldn’t tell him, actually. He knows he has to let Jack go. It should start now.

And yet— 

“You alright there, eh?” Jack says. He steps out of the stairwell and he is framed so perfectly by the starry sky that for a second Bitty forgets how to breathe.

“What? Oh. Yeah,” Bitty says, and he follows.

____________

Ransom, Holster, and Lardo tell him about last year with Johnson on the roof, how apparently he’d been talking about just being letters on a page or something — “Guy was super shwasty,” Shitty chimes in — and Bitty does his best to listen instead of watching Jack photograph the view. He focuses on the breeze cooling his skin.

“I’m not fallin’ asleep with y’all up here,” he says now, shivering. “Didn’t know it’d be so cold up here or I would’ve—”

Something warm and almost heavy drapes over his shoulders. Bitty holds the edges instinctively, surprised, and Jack just smiles as he sits down.

“Oh! Thanks, Jack,” Bitty says.

“No problem,” Jack says, still smiling quietly.

The jacket smells like him. Bitty doesn’t know how exactly to describe it; it’s like Jack’s deodorant mixed with the fabric softener they all use, something special meshed next to home. Bitty slides his arms through the too-long sleeves and the weight and the smell of it is so, so cozy. A sneaky, wiggling thought says  _ this is how he’d smell if he kissed you. _

He does his best to tune into the conversation. They’re all talking over each other, loud and spewing crumbs and hopelessly, gloriously alive, and he’s a little bit in love with all of them. There’s an ease on this rooftop that he wasn’t sure he’d find. He doesn’t know how to say goodbye to it.

The night goes on. The last pieces of Bitty’s pies are fought over and split between Jack and Shitty “Just because you’re graduating,” Lardo tells them, “we don’t actually like either of you,” and Shitty musses her hair so affectionately it hurts Bitty to watch how Lardo’s face changes. 

“Sure you don’t,” Shitty says back. Lardo makes a face at him, then giggles.

Lardo isn’t usually a giggler. Bitty doesn’t think he’s ever, actually, heard her giggle like that. He turns to Jack with the start of some sentence on his tongue, but Jack's already looking back at him.

At the beginning of the semester when everything was melting, Bitty went with Jack to take some early morning photos at the Pond and each of the Quads before anyone else was awake. He knows what Jack looks like when he’s trying to piece a photo together; he knows the slight pinch of his eyebrows, how his lips part as he focuses the camera, the way he just can’t look away before he takes his shot.

Jack looks like this right now. And maybe it’s just the hour, or that they’re here with their friends the night before graduation, and the night before Jack moves away, but right now? Right now Jack’s looking at Bitty like he doesn’t want to stop.

____________

“How’re you feeling?” Bitty whispers later, when his throat is hoarse from talking so much and his legs are sore from sitting so long and his heart hurts from imagining his goodbye. 

Their friends are in various stages of dozing off. Ransom and Holster are passed out on top of each other, Ransom nestled on Holster’s chest with his knee in an empty pie tin. Shitty and Lardo — Bitty thinks they’re probably, definitely kissing somewhere; he can hear whispers of  _ stay in touch  _ and  _ you know I’m not just saying that _ and  _ it’s fucking you brah, it always has been _ coming from a distant corner of the roof. 

Sunlight is bleaching into the horizon, and Bitty spares a second to imagine that. Imagines not having to say goodbye tomorrow, having all the pieces falling into place at once. What a fairy tale that would be. It doesn’t feel like something he can set stock in.

Jack sighs, leaning back onto his hands. He tilts his head. “I’m okay,” he says. “It’s strange to think I’m leaving tomorrow. There are—” He breaks off, looking at his hands. Then he looks at Bitty. “There are some people I’m not ready to say goodbye to yet, I think.”

It hangs delicately in the air between them. Bitty’s almost afraid to move in case he breaks it.

“It’s not a real goodbye though,” he says hesitantly. “I mean, you’ll be close. And I — we could visit, and you’ll come see our games. Right? It doesn’t have to be, you know.”

He doesn’t say  _ I couldn’t bear that, _ but the way Jack’s mouth twitches tells him he hears it anyway. And maybe Bitty should be worried about saying too much, and he would be if he thought it mattered. Right now nothing seems to matter except the way the sunrise glows on Jack’s lips.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jack says quietly. 

To protect himself Bitty says, “We wouldn’t miss it,” but Jack shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I mean, I love them, and I wanted them here, too. But — Bits. You’re the only one I really would’ve missed, badly, if you hadn’t been here.”

“Jack,” Bitty says. It’s almost more of a breath than his name.

Jack smiles a little apologetically. “It’s secrets time,” he says. “Didn’t feel right not to say it. But I am sorry, if that was — if it was too much to say.”

Bitty kisses him.

He does it slow to give Jack time to react, leaning over instead of reaching up because Jack’s still leaning on his hands, and because for a moment Bitty wants to be taller. Even if just briefly. It’s so beautiful to see how Jack’s eyelashes flutter, so wondrous to hear him inhale sharply. Dizzying when Jack kisses him back. Anchoring when he cradles Bitty’s face in his hands. 

Jack brushes his thumb over Bitty’s cheek and Bitty covers his hand with his own. Jack kisses the inside of his wrist.

“Oh,” Bitty whispers when they part. He interlaces their fingers.

“I hope,” Jack says softly, “that that was you saying, ‘that wasn’t too much.’”

Bitty laughs breathlessly. “You’re never too much.”

A loud clattering makes them both jump. Ransom, yawning, had stretched and sent the pie tin spiraling across the roof. Bitty catches his gaze and something in his face must be shouting, because Ransom pats Holster’s chest urgently.

“Bro,” Ransom says. 

“Oh my god,” Holster says loudly. “Did it finally fucking happen?”

Bitty can feel his ears lighting on fire. Jack starts laughing next to him, and Bitty elbows him. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bitty says.

“Did what finally happen?” Lardo calls, strolling back toward the group with her arm around Shitty’s waist.

Shitty seems to read their faces immediately. He stops in his tracks. “You beautiful bastards,” he says, a fond smile spreading over his face. “You gorgeous motherfuckers. Y’all finally kissed, huh.”

Bitty looks at Jack and his eyes are saying,  _ if you want to? _ It almost seems like a dare. Bitty wants to.

“And we’re about to do it again,” he says, and Ransom and Holster whoop.

Jack’s still laughing when they kiss. He tastes like sunrise.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This came from a prompt over on Tumblr, so if you have any ideas for others [let me know!](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> Pls scream with me in the comments or hit me up [on Tumblr :)](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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